Texas Politics & Government: Ideas and Institutions

In a prior post, I noted the distinction among several types or kinds of representation. In that post, I considered the degree to which each political party represents the people of Texas in the Texas legislature. In this post, I want to give you an idea of how I plan to approach substantive representation. As noted in the previous post, substantive representation involves the degree to which the representatives are like the people they represent in terms of public policy. In this post, I will examine one issue, enacted by the 82 nd Texas legislature. As described by the House Research Organization, House Bill 15 requires each abortion provider to perform a sonogram on a woman seeking an abortion. The sonogram must be performed at least 24 hours before the abortion or two hours before the abortion if the woman lives at least 100 miles from the nearest abortion facility. The physician must provide verbal explanations of the images and the heart auscultation, which must be vis...

In his 2013 State of the State address, Governor Perry stated that education spending had increased during the last decade. He stated: Over the past decade, the state's share of public education spending increased from $11 billion per year to $20 billion in '09. That's an 82% increase. Part of our push for accountability has included a sharper focus on the basics like math, science, English & social studies. Those efforts are paying off in the lives of our young people. For example, Texas has been recognized as one of only four states closing the achievement gap in math. On the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, Texas children scored significantly higher than their peers. The quality of education in our state is getting better and better preparing hardworking Texans to apply their legendary work ethic and provide for their families. Is Perry correct, and more importantly, does it accurately reflect the position of education in Texa...

 In November, 2012, after the members of the 83 rd Texas legislature were elected, Professor Mark Jones authored a Baker Institute Blog post entitled: “Which Party best Mirrors Texas in Austin?” As Professor Jones noted: The 95-member GOP caucus is almost exclusively Anglo, with 88 Anglos (93 percent), three Hispanics (3 percent), 3 African Americans (3 percent), and 1 Asian American (1 percent). On the other side of the aisle will be a much more diverse 55-member Democratic caucus, comprised of 30 Hispanics (55 percent), 15 African Americans (27 percent), eight Anglos (15 percent), and two Asian Americans (4 percent). He then uses the Loosemore and Hanby Index (LHI), an index of disproportionality, to determine which political party in the legislature is more representative of Texas. He concludes that: The composition of the Democratic delegation in the House comes closest to reflecting the entire Texas population, while the Republican delegation comes closest to...

It’s time to update the figure on party identification in Texas. In a UT-Texas Tribune poll conducted in October 2012, respondents reported the following percentages in party identification: As you can observe, not much has changed since the May poll, but one wouldn’t expect much change, given the purported stability in party identification. Interestingly, the percentage of strong Republicans increased slightly (by 1 percent), and the percentage of strong Democrats decreased slightly (by 2 percent); weak partisans increased in both parties (Republicans by 4 percent and Democrats by 6 percent); Republican learning independents decreased by 2 percent, and Democratic leaning independents decreased by 3 percent. The percentage of pure independents decreased by 2 percent. If we only consider the percentage of partisans and independents, there was little change in party identification in Texas: 31 percent identified as Republicans; 29 percent identified as Democrats; 37 percent ide...

In July, 2012, as the runoff in the Republican and Democratic primary election approached, Professor Mark Jones argued that voter turnout in the Republican primary runoff election could be predicted based on the early voting turnout in the most populous fifteen counties in Texas (his blog post is here ). He provided early voting figures from the first Republican primary, which allowed twelve days for early voting, compressed the data into five days to be comparable to the five days of early voting allowed in the runoff primary election. He stated that if a comparison of early voting (early voting in the runoff/early voting in the first primary) was a low percentage, then turnout would likely be closer to the low estimate for voter turnout in the runoff primary. On the other hand, if the proportion were large, then turnout would likely be closer to the high estimate for voter turnout in the runoff primary. His figure is reproduced below: Professor Jones admits that accuratel...